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HOST: [00:00:00] We're often told that finding peace meansgetting away, out of the city, into nature, somewhere quieter. But what if it'scloser
DK Kinard: than
HOST: that?
DK Kinard: Look atthe cracks in the cement and notice that life and green always finds a way.
Kira Strong: Assomeone who works during the day and finds it hard sometimes to get outside, Ihave never regretted when I take 15 minutes to walk outside, even if it'saround my block.
HOST: Today, findingpeace underneath our feet by reconnecting with the natural world right where weare. And coming up later on the program, we'll talk about climate change andconflict.
HOST: This is PeaceTalks Radio, the radio series and podcast on peacemaking and non-violentconflict resolution. Whether it's the search for inner peace, harmony in ourclosest relationships, or understanding in our workplaces, schools,neighborhoods, and beyond, we explore it here on Peace Talks Radio. Frompersonal [00:01:00] moments to globalmovements, we consider what it takes to build a more peaceful world.
HOST: I'm JessicaTichon. On this program, we often explore how people navigate conflict betweenone another. But in this episode, we're looking at a quieter kind ofdisconnection, one that shapes how we move through our daily lives, oftenwithout realizing it. For many of us, especially in cities, nature can feellike something separate, something we have to travel to, schedule time for, orseek out intentionally.
HOST: But whathappens when that separation itself becomes the source of stress,disconnection, even imbalance? And what if the peace we're looking for isn'tsomewhere else, but already here, woven into the places we pass every day? Onthis edition of Peace Talks Radio, correspondent Amber Wortham takes us to NewYork City, where she speaks with Richard Hayden and Kira Strong of The HighLine, Emily Walker with the Natural Areas Conservancy, as well as communitygardener Sharon Keller in Queens, and DK Kennard of the New York [00:02:00] Restoration Project.
HOST: Together, theyexplore how people are reconnecting with nature in the midst of an urbanenvironment, and what that connection can offer, not just individually, butcollectively. The High Line is an elevated public park built on a formerfreight rail line on Manhattan's West Side, now home to native plants, publicart, and millions of visitors each year.
HOST: For
Ambar Wortham: manypeople, nature in a city can feel like something separate, something you haveto travel to. But spaces like The High Line are designed to shift thatperception. What do you think is helpful for people who are walking amongsttheir neighborhoods in New York City or in other places to recognize about thenatural part of their built environment?
Richard Hayden: Sothat's a really good question, figuring out what people engage with whenthey're just walking on the street. What, I think maybe what we're saying iswhat really defines nature, and I would say that [00:03:00]nature is, is not other, right? So often we think nature is over there andwe're over here, but we are nature.
Richard Hayden: Thatdandelion growing in the crack in the sidewalk is providing a, a drink for anearly, uh, emerging pollinator. So I think you can find nature wherever youlook for it, and so that's one of the things we wanted to encourage people toexperience on the High Line is the fact that, yes, it can be a pretty place totake a walk and talk and see some art and, you know, really view thisincredible project that used to be a railway and still very much looks likethat.
Richard Hayden: Butalso, you have the opportunity to engage with pollinators and with birds and tounderstand the way that we're helping to capture storm water and what, what arethe cl- climate resilient aspects of the plants on the High... I like to say ifyou wanna know what you should be planting in the face of climate chaos, lookat the plants that are growing on the High Line, because they're growing 30feet in the air in [00:04:00] 18 inches of soilwith exceptional wind tunnels from surrounding buildings and reflected lightscorch.
Richard Hayden: And,and so we're gonna really represent the High Line plants as, as things that weshould consider going forward to be really successful in our home gardens.
Ambar Wortham: Ifsomeone is listening to this show and they feel overwhelmed, disconnected, oreven just too busy to go outside, what's one thing you would invite them to dothis week?
Kira Strong: I wouldsay I, as someone who works during the day and finds it hard sometimes to getoutside during the day, I think I've never regretted when I take 15 minutes towalk outside, even if it's around my block. And so that may not have, you maynot have the time, depending on where you are, um, or the ability to make it tonature with a capital N, but I think there's always things that you see in yoursurroundings, whether it's the birds [00:05:00]singing and the way that things shift.
Richard Hayden: Ournative habitats are really diminished, and so I think to be thoughtful and topromote peace, we need to think about how we can support them even when we'rejust doing small plantings, like pots or, or gardens or parkways. And so havingthat lens, I think, is the future of where gardens and plants are headed, is tobe making sure that you can provide some habitat as well as providing thebeauty and, and the engagement.
Ambar Wortham:Central Park is synonymous with finding peace in New York City. That's whatit's designed for. So much so, there are 42 million visits each year frompeople traveling from across the city and the world just to experience it. Butwhen people go home, back to their neighborhoods and their busy lives, how dothey find that feeling again?
Ambar Wortham: Thisepisode is about the places along the way that may be hidden in plain sight, [00:06:00] woven into the spaces you move throughevery day, and maybe even underneath your feet, waiting for you to notice.
Kira Strong: When Ithink of peace in nature, I think I also think about what it is to dig in thedirt, going back to those childhood days.
Kira Strong: Andwhether it is pots on your fire escape or window sill, or if you have a littleback patio, I think the ability to plant, to see green, to feel like you hadthe ability to invite pollinators or nature into your little space. And even ifit's indoors, I think it just is such a lovely addition to your dailyexperience.
Ambar Wortham: Butnot all green space is experienced in the same way. In a city shaped byinequality and longstanding patterns of disinvestment, access to nature and tothe peace it can offer is not evenly shared. [00:07:00]
Kira Strong: I grewup in upstate New York, um, in a pretty rural town, um, for most of mychildhood. So could run and just adventure, right?
Kira Strong: Streamsand cricks and, depending where you live, what you call those. And build treehouses and all that kind of, you know, really fun stuff, which is not theexperience for the majority of inhabitants in our country or in urban areas. Inmy prior life, I worked, um, for the City of Philadelphia, focused on parks,rec centers, playgrounds, and libraries, actually, in neighborhoods, andrethinking what those spaces oftentimes, uh, who had seen...
Kira Strong: whichhad seen decades of disinvestment, and rethinking what those spaces could beand what it would mean to families and children who may not get to the HighLine in New York City, or may not get to Disney World, or may not get out muchbeyond their direct neighborhoods. And so thinking how these green spaces couldprovide that [00:08:00] opportunity and thosemoments of, um, joy and the moments of exposure to green space and kind of whatyou do in green space and how you interact with nature.
Kira Strong: And sothat piece, I think, was really important as we were thinking about designingthose playgrounds and parks. And thinking about how instead of it being acontained space with set activities that were very prescribed, thinking moreholistically around- How to enable a freer kind of experience of the outdoorsin these spaces.
Kira Strong: And wegot a lot of very positive feedback from families and children who reallyhelped inform the design for these spaces. So I think also then seeing theusage of the spaces from the families who would come. You know, I think aboutpeace, that makes me think about peace as well, 'cause I think about peopleinteracting who may not norm- may not have known each other, maybe neighbors,maybe not neighbors.
Kira Strong: And [00:09:00] so they're in a space and experiencing alevel of and a sense of joy, um, because it's fun. And I think what that doeswhen you think about how people interact and that civility and the relationshipbuilding, to me that's also a part in addition to the green space. What thatdoes for your senses, I think it's that human connection to me also contributesto a feeling of peace.
Ambar Wortham:Finding peace in nature may not require leaving the city behind. Meet EmilyWalker. Emily is the senior manager of external affairs at the Natural AreasConservancy, where she leads advocacy and policy work to protect and resourceNew York City's urban natural areas.
Emily Walker: Justbeing out in a group of volunteers, many of whom, um, in my last couple ofyears of doing this have been high school students, um, getting their, like,service credits.
Emily Walker: I haveseen firsthand that it brings New York City teenagers into public spaces in acontext that they may not have otherwise been in that [00:10:00]space for, right? If that makes sense. And I, seeing just the, the eye-opening,like, we just counted 300 Canada geese on the Ridgewood Reservoir, or we justsaw this really special, um, yellow-rumped warbler that somehow is still herein, in early December, let's say.
Emily Walker: But Ithink just giving folks the chance to see and interact with nature that has,like, maybe been there that they didn't realize was there is, has always been areally illuminating experience. But I used, I also used to run for many years aprogram, um, when I worked at New Yorkers for Parks called the DaffodilProject, which is major kind of volunteer initiative that started afterSeptember 11th.
Emily Walker: And thewhole goal is to give communities daffodil bulbs to plant in public spaces. Andwhen I was running that program, we did a lot of school plantings across thefive boroughs. Um, and I can't tell you how many, at this, truly, like,thousands of kids I think that I interacted with in the almost decade I wasrunning this program, who, [00:11:00] um, wereplanting something for the first time.
Emily Walker: Like,this was, this, this program was often the first chance that they had to, like,put on gardening gloves, hold a trowel, dig a little hole. Maybe we wereplanting in the street tree beds outside of their public school. Um, maybe iftheir school had actual space, we could plant there too. But it was, um- Alwaysso special to see the way that kids were interacting with an experience they'dnever had before.
Emily Walker: Forthose kids who hadn't had the chance to garden, seeing a worm for the firsttime was always, like, also, I think something that just is, uh, forever, like,etched in my mind as, like, a really, um, fun and fascinating thing thathappens when you get kids kind of digging in the soil. Um, because for a lot ofkids, it's really easy to feel disconnected when you don't have access to thesekinds of spaces, when you don't necessarily have a backyard or a front yard tokind of play around in and dig around in.
Ambar Wortham: Thosemoments of discovery might seem small. A child seeing a worm [00:12:00] for the first time, a teenager noticingbirds in a park they've passed every day, but they point to something deeper.For many people, especially in cities, the distance from nature isn't justphysical. It's learned. It's shaped by where you grow up, what spaces feelavailable to you, and whether you've been invited to see yourself as part ofthe natural world in the first place.
Ambar Wortham: Andonce that connection is made, it can begin to shift not just how you feel aboutyour surroundings, but how you move through them, how you relate to yourneighborhood, to other people, even to yourself. Because finding peace innature isn't always about escaping the city. Sometimes it's about noticingwhat's already there and realizing that you belong to it.
Ambar Wortham: Forsome New Yorkers, that connection becomes something more than a moment. Itbecomes a practice, something they return to, tend, and share with [00:13:00] others.
Sharon Keller: I'm agardener, full-time at Siegert Community Garden in Rock- Far Rockaway, Queens.It's part of NYRP's 52 gardens, and, uh, it's a pleasure.
Ambar Wortham: Thankyou so much, Sharon.
Ambar Wortham: Whendid you start gardening?
Sharon Keller: Mygrandfather also was a sharecropper, and I would go sometimes down, especiallyat the school holidays, go down to down south, or I would go to my grandmotheron Shinnecock Reservation, Reservation. And I learned to garden since a kid,since they gave you the little cup and the bean seed to put on your windowsill.
Ambar Wortham: Canyou tell me a little bit about that?
Sharon Keller: Yes.Um, well, w- my grandmother in Shinnecock, we learned a lot of herbal thingsand just living off the land because it's a reservation. So we, I would gothere, and I learned about nothing goes to waste. Everything is, is definitelyused or is [00:14:00] essential. And mygrandfather in North Carolina, well, he was more of a, a real gardener, asharecropper, so he had to t- teach me about the ways of the garden and how togarden and how to be successful
Ambar Wortham: How doyou find peace in the garden?
Sharon Keller: Oh,there's so many different ways of finding peace. Just going to the garden,sitting by myself sometimes before I start my work, and listening to thebirdsong. That's, in New York City, that's invaluable, where it's kind ofdrowning out all of the, the outside noises of the bust- the bustling city. Sojust doing that, enjoying the sunlight.
Sharon Keller: Um,touching the dirt, working with the dirt, working with the soil, because that'ssomething that, that just stays. In this day and age, things are coming andgoing. Everything is transient. But to me, the dirt is [00:15:00]always the same. It always remains. So it's very grounding, and that's beenproven nowadays that when you touch the dirt or you're able to touch the, thegrass, it, it really stimulates endorphins and different things within yourbody.
Ambar Wortham:Today's episode is about finding peace underneath our feet or peace in nature.I
DK Kinard: am DKKennard. I am the director of community engagement with the New YorkRestoration Project, acronym NYRP.
Ambar Wortham: For DKKennard, peace in nature is something you practice and something you build withothers.
Sharon Keller: Well,I've found that most gardeners that I've encountered are very kind people,people that are connected to the, to the land and connected to themselves andthe spirits and understand that there's more than just us on this, on this workschedule.
Sharon Keller: It's [00:16:00] more to life. So these people oftentimesshare with you in different various ways. They pour into you, and it's, it's avery good place for community to build things, to talk about things. We've hadeven politicians come to our garden, and it's a respite for them to actuallytalk to people in a human way, and it slows everything down, where it's moreunderstandable, more reachable.
Ambar Wortham: Whatwould you say or what would you want your neighbors that you live close to oreven people who live in other parts of the city, what would you tell them ifthey said, "I feel like I'm too busy to go out to the garden to findpeace," or, "Oh, my life is too chaotic to find peace"? I would
Sharon Keller: sayit's so essential [00:17:00] to make time foryourself.
Sharon Keller: I- inthese days, we are all so driven. We all have work to do. We have things to d-to, to see and people to touch and this and that and the other, but we forgetabout ourselves. It's essential to have that little bit of time, even if it'sonly a half an hour. Go to sit, to meditate, to just not think about anythingelse and just see what comes to your psyche.
Sharon Keller: Thatis a peace that's unknown to, to a lot of people, and we all can do that anytime. But being able to go to the garden, that's a benefit. So you, you able togo there and to get crops and things to, to eat as a re- as a reward is justbeautiful.
Ambar Wortham: For DKKennard, peace in nature is something you practice and something you build withothers.[00:18:00]
DK Kinard: I am thedirector of community engagement with the New York Restoration Project, acronymNYRP. I am born and raised in New York City, and I'm often disheartened whenpeople refer to my city as a concrete jungle. New York City is many things, butthe first thing it ever was and still is to a gardener is green.
DK Kinard: It isalways nature, and because it is always nature, for me, it is always peace.
Ambar Wortham: Ooh. Ilove that orientation, DK. You mention about being, the misconceptions thatpeople have about New York City and its pace. Can you share how you've beenable to not go into this, uh, narrative that people have [00:19:00] about New York City being just concreteand busyness, uh, but rather it always being green?
DK Kinard: I startedout as a very young horticulturalist at home. I am very severely asthmatic, andI couldn't always go outside because New York City is a city that is fraughtwith pollution and ir- environmental challenges. And because of that, my momhad to create nature at home. She started me very early with houseplants thathave been in my family lineage, have been in my home for decades, that Iinherited when she passed, and she created the garden inside of our house.
DK Kinard: I haveplants literally in every r- [00:20:00] room ofmy home. That is my New York City. Seeing green in my home, learning aboutgreen in my home- While seeing the city skyline and landscape outside of mywindow. And I actually came to the gardens much later in life. I have had awide and long span of various careers, but nature always kept calling me home,metaphorically to my own indoor space, but also to the spaces in the city thatreflect nature.
DK Kinard: Andgrowing up with plants, but I always had this sense of green, of life, ofoxygen, and, and living, and I took that with me wherever I go and I, I stilldo. [00:21:00] It wasn't until the pandemicwhen the... easily one of the hardest hitting, um, times of my life and, andmany people's lives just completely stopped us.
DK Kinard: I wasn'tgoing to find that peace solely by myself being isolated. So I started comingout to the gardens, and what I knew happened, so was everybody else. Everybodyelse was coming to the gardens because that's where nature is, that's wherepeace is. And we had enough space to carefully and safely distance, but wedidn't have to be socially distant.
DK Kinard: And when Iwent to the gardens, nature responded. It had the earth medicine that I neededto be calm. It had the food [00:22:00] that Ineeded to be well. It had the people that I needed to talk to when I wasafraid. It had the beauty that I needed when I was lonely. It had the birdsongs that I needed to hear when I needed music and joy.
DK Kinard: And Icould bring all of those things back into my home because my spirit was filled,so was my belly with all the wonderful dishes that I made, and so was my heartbecause I had those connections. I had that peace, and I could bring it backwith me. I needed the time to really refocus, to stop being on this rush, rush,rush, rush, rush, and I needed to [00:23:00]embrace what was becoming my purpose of becoming a full-time gardener.
DK Kinard: This isyour purpose. This is your peace Being in nature, serving the people, growingfood, growing people to grow community.
Ambar Wortham: Thankyou for sharing your story. It's interesting to hear, at times people willthink of peace, and they'll think of this like solitary peace or this peacethat is isolated, and it's beautiful to hear that you are able to sustain peaceby it being a communal, networked experience with people and nature.
DK Kinard: I oftenhear people say, "There's not enough time in the day." Yes, there is.There's plenty of time. Maybe you're just doing too much. Maybe you've put yourpeace on a back [00:24:00] burner and you'renot living peacefully, so you're starting to feel a little too busy and alittle too overwhelmed. I know your listeners are thinking, you know,"Well, I have responsibilities."
DK Kinard: So do I.Bring them to the garden. I have a family. So do I. Bring them to the garden.You know, the club is not it for me. It's lit in the garden. I, I wanna figureout some problems, let me come to the garden and talk to my village. I wanna dosome work. I can do that in the garden. That's my outside office.
DK Kinard: If I canmake time to be busy, I can make time to invest in my health and wellbeing. Ican have lunch in the garden. You know, I don't, I don't take phone calls inthe garden because that's disruptive. I can listen to my music. I can exercisein the [00:25:00] garden, right? So many thingsI can do in the garden. And maybe some of your listeners are going, "Well,climate prevents me from doing that."
DK Kinard: That'strue, but I can sit in a greenhouse from the rain. I can wear my, my wintercoat in the garden. There is still life happening there. Nature starts withyour houseplants. It starts right there. Get a plant. Plant something. Put someseeds in your hand. There's a joy that comes when you even just start in yourindoor home.
DK Kinard: And thenwhen you come outside, be a active participant. Listen for birds. Look forbutterflies. Don't think, you know, don't think ill of squirrels. Look at theplant and, and [00:26:00] animal life aroundyou that you've never maybe noticed before. Look at the trees on your block.Look at the trees that you pass when you're being busy going to the subway.
DK Kinard: Look atthe cracks in the cement and notice that life and green always finds a way,right? Look at the, the tree pits, the tree areas. Look at the wood. Look atthe bark. If you're feeling a little adventurous, put your hand on a tree andconnect with it. If you're not ready, just stand there and look at it.
DK Kinard: I, I maketime to eat. I make time to get up and shower and brush my teeth. If I can maketime for everything else, I can make time for my wellness. So not only are wecommitted to providing these green spaces where you can find peace, where [00:27:00] you can bring peace, where you can curatepeace and create peace, we are committed to educating all New Yorkers andbeyond to learn how to engage with nature and, and one another.
DK Kinard: Becausewhen you engage in the garden, you are engaging with other people positively,and you can still engage, but also be by yourself, if that makes sense. If youare an introvert, you can engage and be with people if you are an extrovert.You can come and engage and learn about nature. So it's like, why wouldn't youwanna come to the garden?
DK Kinard: The gardenis lit. The garden is where it's at, right? Get to see people, get to growstuff, get to eat. What's more fun than that? You know? And, and you get tohave peace. That's it.
HOST: That wascorrespondent Amber Wortham speaking with DK Kennard of the New YorkRestoration Project. Earlier, you heard from Richard Hayden and Kira [00:28:00] Strong of the High Line, Emily Walker ofthe Natural Areas Conservancy, and Sharon Keller of the Seeger Community Gardenin Queens.
HOST: Even in a city,even in a single block, even in the smallest patch of soil, there is somethingliving, something ongoing, something that invites us to slow down and notice,and sometimes that's where peace begins. To learn more about our guests andtheir work, go to peacetalksradio.com. That's where you can go to hear all ourprograms in our series dating back to 2003.
HOST: Support comesfrom listeners like you and the McCune Foundation. Nola Davis Moses is ourexecutive director. Ali Adelman composed and performs our theme music. ForAmber Wortham and co-founders Paul Ingalls and Suzanne Kreider, I'm JessicaTichon. Thanks so much for listening to and for supporting Peace Talks Radio.[00:29:00] [00:30:00]
HOST: Today on PeaceTalks Radio, we look at the connection between climate, conflict, and thechoices we make as individuals and communities.
Dan Smith: We areactually dependent upon what nature provides us, and if the natural foundationsof our lives together are turning out to be somewhat unstable, it's hardlysurprising that this can lead to violent conflict.
Thomas Homer-Dixon:Are we going to have the capacity to respond creatively with innovation, withsolutions to the climate change challenge that we're facing?
HOST: Climate changeand conflict, today on Peace Talks Radio.
HOST: This is PeaceTalks Radio, the radio series and podcast on peacemaking and non-violentconflict resolution. Whether it's the search for inner peace, harmony in ourclosest relationships, or [00:31:00]understanding in our workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, and beyond, we exploreit here on Peace Talks Radio. From personal moments to global movements, weconsider what it takes to build a more peaceful world.
HOST: I'm JessicaTichon. We're revisiting a Peace Talks Radio Earth Day special from ourarchive, and including an updated reflection on how these ideas have evolved.Climate change is often talked about in terms of rising temperatures or extremeweather. But for many people around the world, its effects are already beingfelt in more immediate ways, through water shortages, displacement, and growinginstability.
HOST: For years,researchers and peace builders have been asking a difficult question: how doesa change in climate shape the conditions for conflict or for cooperation? Inthis program, we revisit conversations from our archive that explored thesequestions, including an interview with Dan Smith of the peace buildingorganization International Alert.
HOST: And today wehear how his thinking has evolved, [00:32:00]moving from a sense of risk to a recognition that these connections are alreadya reality. We'll also explore what determines whether societies are able torespond to these challenges, and what role each of us might play. Dan Smith isthe author of the report, A Climate of Conflict: the Links Between ClimateChange, Peace and War.
HOST: Smith saysunderstanding this link between the effects of climate change and world peaceand security means understanding what he calls the consequences ofconsequences.
Speaker 11: Globalwarming, which is, um, caused by, uh, largely by, uh, carbon emissions, leadsto changes in weather patterns, and those changes in weather patterns mean thenthat there are consequences like, uh, rising sea levels, melting, uh, glaciers,rainy seasons, some places get longer, in some places there's less rainfall,the crop cycle gets shorter, and so on.
Speaker 11: And then [00:33:00] as you follow through, all of those, thephysical effects, have further consequences in the sense that they make, uh,the lives of people harder. Uh, for example, in Peru, the melting of thetropical glaciers is a se- really serious problem. And while to begin with thatmeans that there will be, um, uh, an overabundant supply of water, inrelatively short timeframe, there's actually going to be shortages of water.
Speaker 11: Now, whatis going to be the consequences of that? Is it possible that, for example,water prices will rise, that left, um, to itself, this, um, result willproduce, uh, water profiteering? Um, how will ordinary people respond to waterprofiteering? We've actually seen from within Peru that they respond withprotest, and that sometimes those protests have turned violent.
Speaker 11: What willbe the further effects of that? All the time we are tracing through theconsequences of the consequences, and trying to look at what [00:34:00] are the risks which are being generatedhere. I think sometimes people sort of find it a bit difficult to get theirheads around all of the imponderables in this, and the only thing which I cansay in response to that is, well, we have to get our heads around all of theseimponderables.
Speaker 11: Thefuture is going to be different from the past, and we-- if we're going tosurvive that future, and if we're going to even prosper in that future, we haveto figure out the ways in which it could be different, and where those waysare, are negative and potentially even disastrous, then we've got to figure outa counterstrategy.
Carol Boss: There'sso much discussion going on about all this right now, and there are those whowrite about, those who speak about and believe that the link between climatechange and conflict is tenuously made and has not been demonstrated and how doyou respond to that?
Speaker 11: Well,I've seen, uh, some of these studies, and [00:35:00]they're serious studies.
Speaker 11: But Ithink the thing to bear in mind with all of this is there are two things,right? One is those people who've been thinking about global warming andclimate change over, uh, the past couple of decades have rightly taught us tounderstand that the future is going to be different from the past. So if youresearch past patterns of the relationship between, uh, environment or climateand conflict, and you don't find a clear relationship, you may be accuratelyresearching what did happen from, let's say, 1960 to 1999, but this may not betelling you what is likely to happen from now and henceforth.
Speaker 11: And thesecond thing is that we are not talking about making hard and fast predictions.We're talking about risk, and we're talking about the management of risk. [00:36:00] And if there is a case to be made, as webelieve there is, that there is a serious risk of, um, conflict as a result ofthe interaction between the consequences of climate change and other socialreality, then surely something ought to be done about it.
Speaker 11: Ifthere's a serious risk of, um, an accident, shouldn't you do something to tryto prevent that accident? Shouldn't you drive more safely? Shouldn't you walkon the pavement instead of in the middle of the highway and so on and so forth?It's, it's really no more complicated than that. And I don't think thatarguments which show that there's no proof of a connection between climatechange and conflict over the previous three decades or four decades are anykind of a guide whatsoever as to what the links could be and what we should,um, do out of sensible caution over the next two to three decades.
Carol Boss: [00:37:00] And in your report, you, um, a phrase thatI, I read over and over again is not only the... it's the notion of a differentapproach that you talk about being possible, but you say it's based on peacebuilding and engaging communities.
Speaker 11: Yeah.What we found as we went into it was that many of the, the activities that youwould carry out in order to adapt successfully to the threat of climate changeare the same as the kind of activities that you do in order to build peace.
Speaker 11: And thisis because the key to it, in both cases, is the involvement of the community atthe base. You've got to have- Government support for this, it's got to be ledand inspired from the national level. Almost certainly that needs internationalassistance for resourcing it and for providing encouragement.
Speaker 11: But ifyou don't have the energy at the community level, if you don't have the drivecoming from there, from local leaders, from traditional leaders, and fromelected leaders, this [00:38:00] can't be donetop-down on command. It can only be done bottom-up with the involvement ofordinary people.
HOST: We spoke withDan Smith again recently to hear how his perspective has changed.
Dan Smith: The coreof how to think about the relationship between climate change and insecurityand conflict is to understand how the impact of a changing climate interactswith various different features of the socioeconomic and political environment.A poorer country, a badly governed country, a region within a country that hasbeen marginalized and ignored by the capital, somewhere where inequality isrife, perhaps a country or a region which has recently suffered violentconflict or where there is violent conflict next door, all of these are aspectsof vulnerability.
Dan Smith: [00:39:00] Fifteen to twenty years ago, we thoughtthis was a risk. Today, we see that it's a reality. Human society is basedeverywhere on natural foundations. Even in the most modern, urban, digitalizedenvironments, we are actually dependent upon what nature provides us. And ifthe natural foundations of our lives together are turning out to be somewhatunstable, it's hardly surprising that this can lead to violent conflict.
Dan Smith: We humans,we are part of this. We are part of the biosphere. So it's not as if when wedamage nature, we are damaging something outside us. We're damaging ourselvesbecause we are part of nature. The evidence has become clearer, and in a way,that's really tragic because it means that the, some of the worst thoughts [00:40:00] of fifteen to twenty years ago are comingtrue.
Dan Smith: And on theother hand, I think that as things become clearer, you are seeing more and morein governments as well as amongst citizens and ordinary people theunderstanding that it's important to act and that we have to act now to securea world that is safer for nature and therefore, because we are part of it, forus.
HOST: That was DanSmith, former director of the peace building organization International Alert.
Paul Ingles: Next, wevisit with Thomas Homer-Dixon, chair at the Trudeau Center for Peace andConflict Studies at the University of Toronto. He's devoted much of hisacademic career since the late 1980s exploring the connection betweenenvironmental stress and violence in developing countries.
Thomas Homer-Dixon:Within the work that we did during that decade, we were focusing in [00:41:00] particular on, uh, renewable resources inpoor countries. Uh, in those days, and it's still largely true, about half theworld's population depends upon local supplies of fresh water, of cropland, offuel wood to provide for their daily survival.
Thomas Homer-Dixon:And we looked at places where those were under stress, where those resourceswere degraded or overused, where perhaps there were too many people for theresources that were available in those areas, and then tried to understand whatkind of effects those scarcities of cropland, forest, and water had on people.
Thomas Homer-Dixon:You know, how did it affect their lives? How did-- Did it make them poorer? Didit cause them to move? Uh, did it, uh, deepen divisions between ethnic groupsin their, in their communities? Uh, did it weaken institutions, weaken, uh,say, local governments and even national governments? So we investigated all ofthose things really, really [00:42:00] closelywith an eye on what the, what the possibilities were for conflict, uh, inparticular, uh, insurgency and revolution and guerrilla war within thesesocieties, what-- how these stresses might contribute to those kinds ofconflict.
Thomas Homer-Dixon: Ispent quite a bit of time with my colleagues thinking through what might happenif the climate did start to change and what the implications would be, and itturns out that a lot of that original analysis we did now, uh, quite some timeago, uh, is really relevant because now we are seeing climate change affectingpeople all over the world, and we're seeing real impacts now affectingpotentially hundreds of millions of people.
Carol Boss: Why dosome societies successfully adapt while others don't?
Thomas Homer-Dixon:Well, that's really the sixty-four thousand dollar question. Uh, and it reallyrelates to the issue of climate change. Uh, are we going to have the capacityto respond creatively with innovation, with solutions to the climate change [00:43:00] challenge that we're facing?
Thomas Homer-Dixon:Uh, I think of this in terms of what I call an ingenuity gap. In fact, I wrotea book titled The Ingenuity Gap. There are, uh, there are factors that aredriving up our requirement for more complicated and sophisticated solutions toour To our problems. Problems are getting harder, and so we need bettersolutions, and we need a faster rate of delivery of solutions.
Thomas Homer-Dixon:And then there are f- there are things that actually in some societies stop thedelivery of solutions, uh, actually prevent societies from responding. Eventhough problems are getting harder, the societies can't respond. And so in manyof the cases we were looking at, we started to dig under the surface and lookat the things that would keep, uh, people and governments and institutions fromeffectively solving their problems.
Thomas Homer-Dixon:Uh, things like corruption. Uh, um, governments that don't have adequatefinances are not going to be able to effectively, um, solve their citizens' [00:44:00] problems. Uh, and something that comes upover and over again is the power of special interests who want to maintain thestatus quo and block any useful reform.
Carol Boss: Do youhave, off the top of your head, some ideas about how people can wrap theirheads around some of these issues and do something in their lives?
Thomas Homer-Dixon:Uh, first of all, I think it's really important that people realize thatclimate change, in particular, which I think is p- probably ultimately the mostthreatening environmental challenge human beings will ever face, that climatechange is not just a matter of the temperature getting warmer outside.
Thomas Homer-Dixon:It's going to affect every aspect of our economies and societies and the way welive, and especially the lives of our children and our grandchildren, becausethe biggest impacts are going to manifest themselves later in this century. Uh,and, and it will have [00:45:00] effects on notjust quality of life, but on life period.
Thomas Homer-Dixon:It's going to affect whether societies can actually maintain themselves asstable, coherent, productive enterprises. So that's the first thing that Ithink people need to realize. The second thing is that climate change is a, isa tractable problem. It's a problem we can solve. We have the technology, youknow, like they used to say in "The Six Million Dollar Man," youknow, it, it...
Thomas Homer-Dixon:We can, we can do this. Uh, it's mostly about will. It's about m- mobilization.It's about political leadership, and it's about action. At the individual andcommunity level, fifty percent of the climate change problem is going to besolved by things that people do in their households and in their communities.
Thomas Homer-Dixon:Individual changes that people make in how much energy they consume, what kindof technologies they use, what kind of lifestyles they lead. We don't have tosacrifice quality of life here, but we do have to change the way we live, uh,probably fairly significantly. [00:46:00] Andwe can still be very, very happy though.
Thomas Homer-Dixon:Uh, and that's stuff that can start right now. Eh, you know, people deride AlGore when he talks about changing light bulbs, but the first step is changing alight bulb. There's a lot more that needs to be done, and a lot of it's gonnabe a lot harder than changing a light bulb, but the first thing you need to dois think about the simple things and the easy things, and then you can go on tothe harder.
Thomas Homer-Dixon:And it's, like, possible for everybody to do that. Some of it can be personalat the level of the household, some of it can be in terms of our own lifestylepractices, and some of it can be in the level of our political, our politicalmobilization and, and lobbying for changes in government policies. And inparticular, giving courageous political leaders who want to do the right thingthe cover that they need, the support they need to go ahead and do it.
Thomas Homer-Dixon:Uh, and, uh, and that, that happens one conversation, one conference, oneletter to the editor, one article to a community newspaper, one dinnerdiscussion at a time.
Paul Ingles: Dr.Thomas [00:47:00] Homer-Dixon oversees thePeace and Conflict Studies Department at the University of Toronto. He spokewith our interviewer, Carol Boss.
Paul Ingles: You canhear twice as much from each of our guests in that episode from our Peace TalksRadio series by heading to our website, peacetalksradio.com. That'speacetalksradio.com, and looking for our March 2008 episode called Does ClimateChange Threaten Peace? This is a Peace Talks Radio special, Making Peace withOur Earth.
Paul Ingles: I'm PaulIngalls. When the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in Aprilof 2010 and set off the largest accidental marine oil spill in history,virtually everyone viewing the disruption to wildlife and the lives of thepeople in that region was devastated. We felt like it probably set off an innerconflict in many about humans' relationship with nature.
Paul Ingles: So wesought out some voices of people who have already placed that relationship atthe center of their lives to see how their experiences and thinking might helpus all grapple with this [00:48:00] conflict. Alot of the headlines during the three months when the oil gushed into the Gulfframed the event as an attack or war on nature.
Paul Ingles: How canwe think and act to make peace with nature? Today, we speak with John Francis,whose response to an oil spill in 1971 was to quit riding in motorized vehiclesaltogether for twenty-two years and walk all across the country, and duringseventeen of those years, not to speak a single word. In all that time, hecompleted the bachelor's, master's, and PhD degrees in land management.
Paul Ingles: He's theauthor of Planet Walker: How to Change Your World One Step at a Time, and hetalked with our Carol Boss
Guest: It was onlyabout a half a million gallons from two tankers, uh, that collided near theGolden Gate Bridge. Uh, my girlfriend and I, we just rushed to the scene to, tosee an oil spill. We've never seen one before.
Guest: I'd never seenone. And we didn't see it because of the fog, but what we did experience wasthe [00:49:00] smell, and I wanted to dosomething. And I said to my girlfriend, I said, "How about us getting outof our, our cars and just walking?" And she kinda laughed at me.
Carol Boss: You'retalking about not just walking, um, uh, down the beach.
Carol Boss: You weretalking about a, a larger f- uh, decision?
Guest: Absolutely. Imean, I was talking about getting rid of our involvement with the motor- m-with motor transport altogether, meaning we'd walk to the store, we'd walk tothe movies. Wherever we had to go, um, we would walk.
Carol Boss: Thatpresented you with an opportunity to, um, to change, didn't it?
Guest: Well, it did.You know? And, and I think that these, uh, events happen in our lives all thetime. There are all certain kinds of events that happen that give us anopportunity to, to make a difference in, in our own lives. And eventually whathappens is when we make a difference in our own lives, we are making differencein, in, in each other's lives.
Guest: But whathappened was because in my community people saw [00:50:00]me walking, uh, and they started to argue with me about how one person reallycan't make a difference. And, and I didn't know if that was true or not. I justfound myself arguing all the time. Here I am walking around in this beautifulenvironment, and all I do is a- argue with my, my friends and my neighbors, whooften felt that what I was doing was something to make them look bad.
Guest: And so on mybirthday, I took the extraordinary step of, um, deciding not to speak for oneday. And that was what really changed my life most dramatically.
Carol Boss: And whathappened after that first day of not speaking? What did you notice?
Guest: Well, thefirst thing that, that I noticed about not speaking was that I hadn't beenlistening.
Guest: And because Ihadn't been listening, I had stopped learning. I would just listen long enoughto believe that [00:51:00] I understood or knewwhat the other person was going to say, and then I would stop listening tothem. And I would start thinking about, um, how I was going to say that theywere wrong or that yes, they were right, but I could say that better, or I wassmarter than they were and this is what I had come up with.
Guest: And that oneday I realized that I had not been listening and that, um, I had stoppedlearning And I stopped speaking for another day and another day until finallyI, I had decided that I was gonna not speak for a year, and I would ask myselfon my birthday if that was still appropriate because I was learning so much.
Guest: And it allowedme to, uh, put myself and the things that I believed aside to listen tosomeone, uh, more fully.
Carol Boss: You tookvery large walks a- across the country. Would I be correct in, in saying thatin a sense all of this [00:52:00] was part ofa, a recognition on your part of a personal responsibility?
Guest: Absolutely.
Guest: Absolutely.
Carol Boss: Can you
Guest: talk aboutthat? Well, um, as I was driving across the Golden Gate Bridge with mygirlfriend in our four-wheel drive vehicle, I understood that part of what waswashing up on the shore, I had some responsibility because here I am driving a,a motorized vehicle, and we're using this oil, and I wanted the oil quickly, Iwanted it cheaply, I, I wanted lots of it.
Guest: And because ofthat, the industry, I was creating a demand, as we all do. The industry wasresponding to that demand. Now, absolutely oil companies have a greaterpreponderance of the responsibility, especially when they spill it, but in allfairness, I, I have to take some of the responsibility myself.
Carol Boss: Did thatbring you a sense of [00:53:00] peace in anyway?
Guest: Not rightaway. Because I think that when I made those decisions, I, I, I did make themwith a kind of chip on my shoulder a- and, and that's when I was arguing with,with, uh, my neighbors and my friends and colleagues about what it was I wasdoing and how it was gonna make a difference. When I stopped talking, it, thatallowed me to step back from that and, and to, and to rediscover something andthat that was the, the grounding of, of what I was doing and, and who I wasand, and that the walking actually went beyond a protest of oil spills, and thesilence went beyond a protest of oil spills.
Guest: But this wassomething even bigger than that, that was going to allow me to rediscover who Iwas and who I had to be in, in the world or the planet.
Carol Boss: For the20th anniversary of Earth Day, which was in 1990, you, uh, [00:54:00] arrived on the East Coast, and it wasthere, wasn't it, that you decided to speak?
Guest: I had walkedacross the United States, um, studied oil spills all the way up to a PhD level,um, environment was, uh, my degree, and when I got to the East Coast, I finallyhad something that, that- I needed to say.
Guest: Environment tome had changed. When I started out, it was just about pollution, and soonbecame about loss of species and loss of habitat, all those things wetraditionally think of environment. But what I understood was, and it was inthe literature, is that people are part of the environment. And if people wereindeed part of the environment, then our first opportunity to treat theenvironment in a sustainable way, or even to understand what sustainability is,is in [00:55:00] the relationship withourselves and with each other.
Guest: If we relatedto each other with respect and love and dignity and not looking to, I guess,exploit one another, to oppress each other, uh, if we, if we really treatedeach other the way we wanted to see our physical environment treated, then wewould find that what would happen in our physical environment would be amitigation of a lot of the problems and a lot of the issues that we are facingtoday.
Guest: For example,and this is a very simple, very simple example, if I were a manufacturer and Ilived on a river, and I was making widgets, of course, and widgets werewonderful, everybody wanted them, but in making widgets, there's a wasteproduct which I was dumping into the river. In economic terms, that's called [00:56:00] an externality because I don't have to payfor getting rid of that waste product.
Guest: As it goesdownstream, my company learns that it's actually causing health problems to thetown downstream, and that they actually have to pay to clean up the river in,in order to keep from having these health problems. Now, if I was thinkinglike, "Hey, you know, how we treat each other is how we treat theenvironment," right away I would say, "Oh my God, let's stop.
Guest: We have tostop and figure out how we're gonna take care of this." If I weren't, Imight say, "Well, listen, I want us to bury that memo, and we're not gonnado nothing until people absolutely make us do something." And, and in thatway, you can see how our relationship, our personal relationship with ourselvesand with each other and understanding our connectedness, um, would actuallymake a difference in the environment.[00:57:00]
Carol Boss: I knowthat it's easy for people to turn the TV off or to put a newspaper aside andcreate some distance between themselves and a tragedy such as the Gulf oilspill. How does a person know when it's their moment to make a decision?
Guest: Well, when thetears are running down your face, when you've, you've heard something on thenews Or when you have read it in the paper, you know that there's anopportunity for you to make a change, to do something, because right then,right then you have passion to do it.
Guest: Maybe thetears will go away. They will go away. But at that moment, you know thatthere's something that's touching you on an emotional level and you can do
Paul Ingles:something. John Francis, who gave up motor transport from 1972 to 1994 andremained silent during most of those years in response to a West Coast oilspill.
Paul Ingles: In 1991,he was named a United Nations Environmental Program [00:58:00]Goodwill Ambassador, and he's written the book Planet Walker, How to ChangeYour World One Step at a Time.
HOST: In thisprogram, we've heard how the impacts of climate change don't happen inisolation. They interact with the social and political conditions people arealready living in, shaping whether communities experience instability or findways to adapt and respond.
HOST: To learn moreabout our guests and their work, go to peacetalksradio.com, season 24, episode5. Support comes from listeners like you and the McCune Foundation. NolaDaves-Moses is our executive director. Allie Adelman composed and performs ourtheme music. For co-founders Paul Ingalls and Suzanne Kreider, I'm JessicaDickton.
HOST: Thanks so muchfor listening to and for supporting Peace Talks
Radio.
